Tony Burdin, head of group marketing at Scarborough, says: “The extensive market research we carried out in the run up to the launch of SSM was telling us we’d got the formula right.”

“The packager associations and key account partners who have been on board with us since launch have been extremely supportive, and are putting a good level of business our way in what are still, really, early days.

“However, the feedback we’re getting is that there is a demand for us to expand into the rest of the marketplace, and so we will now do so earlier than planned.

“We deliberately did it this way. As with anything new, we wanted to launch our new subsidiary in a controlled way and give it chance to bed in properly before taking it to the whole of the market.

“Within its first month, though, SSM has exceeded all our expectations and we are now in a position to roll it out ahead of the New Year deadline we had originally planned.”

Lack of awareness has been blamed for just 11% of borrowers in the UK considering mortgage payment protection insurance to be a priority.Research commissioned by Bright Grey shows that mortgage protection is low down the list of people’s priorities, with contents insurance ranked as a more important concern. Only 23% of the home owners surveyed […]

Conti Financial has called for a mandatory 14-day cooling-off period on overseas property deals. Simon Conn, managing director of Conti Financial, says: “Too many people run into these deals like headless chickens. Most people only get one shot at this sort of thing and these properties represent their dreams. So let them stop, go home, […]

The Association of Mortgage Intermediaries’ October census reveals a static market for mortgage adviser recruitment. Most firms have not recruited any advisers in the past 12 months. Research conducted among AMI members shows 80% of firms did not hire new advisers in the past year. When asked whether they intended to recruit in the next […]

By Rob Burnett, head of European Equities at Neptune The ECB delivered a strong package in its latest policy announcement that managed to find the right balance between supporting the economy and not endangering the banking system. The EU banking system is very sensitive to negative rates and, if the ECB were to have cut […]